by R. R. Irvine
“Yes, sir?” Kearns said, licking his lips.
By the time Manwaring finally wrapped them up and punched his stopwatch, Vicki’s report had run four minutes.
“A new record,” he told her.
She hugged him.
“Are we off the air?” the mayor asked.
“Yes, sir,” Manwaring told him.
Kearns beckoned to Sheriff Nichols, who’d been watching the interview from the sidelines.
“I want this man arrested,” the mayor said.
“What for?” Manwaring asked.
“Entering a restricted area for one thing,” the sheriff said. He glanced around. “Trespassing for another.”
“It was worth it.” Vicki pointed at the press helicopter just landing. “We scooped them all. CBS, NBC, and CNN. Reisner owes me now.”
10
WATCHING THE sheriff handcuff Manwaring, Vicki reminded herself to play it cool. Smile and keep your mouth shut. Don’t get arrested. You can’t do anything for Manwaring if you’re behind bars.
At the same time, part of her rebelled. Part of her wanted to say to hell with caution. Order Lew Holland to start shooting. Videotape Manwaring being led away in handcuffs. Turn him into a hero for the next news update. A hero providing her with yet more air time.
Manwaring grimaced as Sheriff Nichols tightened the cuffs. A nice shot, Vicki thought, if you only had the guts to give Holland the go-ahead. Police brutality in action was one of Reisner’s favorites.
She avoided Manwaring’s pleading eyes and said, “I told you we shouldn’t have come to Defiance without permission.”
“The man’s in pain,” Holland told the sheriff.
“He’ll survive until we get him back to town.”
Holland glared at Vicki. So did Frank Wilcox, who was fighting a losing battle to keep his porta-pak free of soot kicked up by an idling chopper. She ignored them both and pretended to study the blackened landscape. Now that the wind had stopped, the smell of death was more concentrated. Flies, she noticed for the first time, were providing a constant background hum.
Pushing Manwaring ahead of him, the sheriff started for the nearest helicopter, the one already reloaded with the unneeded paramedics.
Vicki spoke to the mayor. “How am I going to get back to town?”
“If the fire wasn’t still burning, I’d make you walk.”
“We’d like to go with Manwaring,” Holland said.
The mayor shook his head and waved the helicopter on its way. He didn’t speak again until the sound of its rotors had faded. “You’ll leave when I leave. Right now, I’ve got an inspection to do. After that, the area has to be secured. We don’t want predators coming in here during the night and disturbing the dead.”
With that, Kearns joined the National Guardsmen who were working their way through the rubble bagging bodies. Dogging every step were crews from the other networks, plus the Idaho locals.
“Get me shots of everything,” Vicki told Holland, now that the mayor’s attention was diverted.
“When they arrest me,” the cameraman said, “I hope you treat me better than Kevin.”
Without waiting for her response, he raised the Sony Beta-cam to his shoulder and began videotaping the guardsmen at work. Vicki moved close to Holland so she could point out specific shots she wanted to go along with the bodies: a misshapen wood-burning stove, an intact flower pot, the charred remains of a child’s crib. The other crews had already done the same, though she felt certain that Holland’s talents would make her shots stand out from the crowd.
“Christ,” Holland muttered without taking his eye from the viewfinder, “I’ve got to find another line of work.”
“You’re hooked like the rest of us,” Vicki said.
He switched off the camera. “Screw it.”
“In Manwaring’s absence, I’m in charge.”
He offered her the camera. “It’s all yours.”
She was about to order him back to work, but stopped herself just in time. If he refused, she’d have to go over his head to Reisner.
“There’s no use burdening ourselves with too much videotape,” she said.
Holland sighed. “I’ll get some long shots to cover the editing, Icky.”
“You know I hate that name. You and Franklin pack up the gear when you’re through. In the meantime, I’ll talk to the mayor about getting Kevin out of jail.”
“You’ve left it a bit late, haven’t you?”
“I know what I’m doing, Lewis.”
“That’s the trouble, Icky.”
She forced a smile; she kept it on her face all the way to the mayor’s side.
“Mr. Mayor, we have to get back to town and feed the network. I hope you understand that. Should you deny us a producer, our First Amendment rights might be involved. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to see something like that on the Evening News.”
His lips moved soundlessly. She thought she read the word bitch. “Television always has the last word,” she reminded him.
His jaw dropped open; he started to say something, then seemed to think better of it. He turned to the officer in charge, a captain. “If you don’t need me for anything, I’ll get out of your way.”
The captain pivoted slowly, scanning the horizon in all directions. “We’ll be safe enough here. There’s nothing left to burn. The chopper can come back for us later. That way you won’t have to ride with the . . .” He glanced at the body bags.
“Wait a minute.” Vicki walked along a foot-high mound of stones, all that remained of one building’s foundation. “Did you find all the bodies inside the walls?”
The officer nodded. “Here and in the next building.”
“Why didn’t they try to escape?”
“Where would they have gone?” the mayor answered. “They were surrounded by fire.”
“I would have tried for the lake,” she said.
The mayor studied the water that was at least a hundred yards away. “Before this happened you couldn’t see the lake for the trees.”
“They probably panicked,” the captain said, “and huddled together for comfort.”
“Come on, Miss Garcia,” the mayor said, “it’s time I got you back to town.”
Once Vicki, Holland, and Wilcox were inside the chopper, the crew chief spoke into his headset and closed the door. The rotor whine began immediately.
Kearns tapped the chief on the shoulder and shouted, “Keep an eye on these people. If they cause any trouble, you have my permission to arrest them.”
As soon the mayor left the cargo bay to join the pilots up front, the crew chief was the first in line to ask for Vicki’s autograph.
The helicopter had landed on the outskirts of town, a block and a half from the motel and five blocks from city hall.
“Let’s start walking,” Holland said. “Kevin’s waiting.”
“I’ve got to freshen up first,” Vicki said.
“You can do that at city hall.”
“A few more minutes won’t matter. I need to wash my face.”
“Call Reisner, you mean.”
Vicki shrugged. When they reached McClellan Avenue, she turned into the motel’s driveway while Holland and Wilcox kept going straight ahead up Main Street.
Once in her room, with the door safely locked behind her, she rushed to the bathroom and was sick. Kneeling on the cracked linoleum, hanging on to the cold porcelain, she saw the bodies again. What was left of them. Especially the one in the crib.
Her stomach cramped. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She swallowed, fighting off another spasm. Her throat stung, made worse by the sour taste in her mouth and the stench of chlorine released by a fresh flush of the toilet.
Some tough journalist you are, she told herself. What would Manwaring think of you now?
Never let them see you sweat, let alone throw up.
She rose on shaky legs and made her way to the bed. Stretching out, she closed her eyes. Wimp! Five years in the business an
d you’re still tossing your cookies.
Her hand reached out and found the bedside phone. Her eyes opened at the dial tone.
Damn you, Lewis, she thought as she dialed Herb Reisner’s direct number at the ABN Broadcast Center in New York.
“They’ve arrested Manwaring,” she said the moment the producer came on the line.
“That’s why we have attorneys.”
“Goddammit,” she said, “you’re not the one locked up.”
“You know better than to get personally involved.”
“It could have been me.”
“Why don’t you and Lew Holland go into that jail with the camera rolling? Challenge authority. I can see the video now. One of my female correspondents behind bars and me leading the fight to free her. I’ll have our lawyers on the next plane.”
“If I’m in jail, who’ll do the Morning News?”
“You could go live from your cell,” Reisner said.
His tone of voice alerted her. She clamped a hand over her free ear, the way Manwaring sometimes did, to listen more carefully.
“How about a Q and A with Aarons on freedom of the press?” he said.
There was the lilt Manwaring had mentioned, a sure sign of pure Reisner bullshit.
“Cut the crap, Herb.”
The producer chuckled. “You’re learning, aren’t you? Pretty soon you’ll outgrow the likes of Manwaring.”
“He’s helped me a lot, Herb. He’s the best you’ve got.”
“Are you telling me you need him? That your success depends on him?”
Vicki made a face. Typical of the man, thinking of her as just another talking head. No doubt he’d be happier with one of Lew Holland’s robot correspondents. Wind me up and I do what I’m told.
“I can write my own scripts,” she said.
“I’ve got a network update scheduled in two hours. It’s yours if you can get something fresh, a new angle on the fire.”
She summarized the tape they already had, including the body bags and their locations.
“That sounds nice,” Reisner said, “but I don’t need you live for something like that, not when Aarons can do a voice-over at this end.”
Vicki sighed. “What do you want from me, Herb?”
“What I always want out of my people. Another exclusive.”
“Such as?”
“Vicki, Vicki.” His voice changed again, became softer, more personal. “Maybe you think I push you too hard. But ask yourself why. Because you’re next in line. A weekend anchor to start, then maybe co-anchor.”
She caught her breath.
“That’s right. We’re thinking of going to a tandem on the Evening News, like the old Huntley-Brinkley Report, only better because someone like you can provide the feminine point of view.”
“Is that a formal offer?” she said.
“It’s all hush-hush so far, but under definite consideration at the highest level. It’s stories like your exclusive today that give me ammunition to fight for you. One more for tonight’s update and who knows what might happen? It’s prime time remember, sandwiched between our two highest-rated sitcoms. Give me ammunition, baby, to use on the News Group vice president. That’s all I ask.”
In the background, she heard another phone ring.
“You’ve got an hour and fifty minutes to come up with something,” Reisner said and hung up.
She got up, washed her hands and face, and selected her outfit carefully. The camouflage look wouldn’t do in prime time. She went with a light blue silk blouse with a high neck, a dark blue blazer and a string of lapis lazuli beads.
She checked herself in the bathroom’s cloudy mirror. Eat your heart out, Reisner. You’ll never find a robot this good.
She added a touch of eye makeup and left to find her cameraman and rescue Manwaring.
The windowless basement jail was as bleak as its gray, rock-faced walls. Looking at the stone, Vicki had the feeling that it would be slimy to the touch. She was about to test her theory when Sheriff Nichols came through a doorway behind a waist-high counter that separated the waiting area from the cells beyond. With him was Manwaring, no longer handcuffed.
Next to Vicki, Holland had his camera balanced casually on his shoulder as if he had no intention of using it.
“Free at last,” Manwaring said.
“You’re the one with the cash,” Vicki told him. “You could have bailed yourself out.”
The sheriff shook his head. “We haven’t set the amount yet.”
“I’ve talked to our boss in New York,” Vicki said. “He assures me that our lawyers are on standby.”
“Your Mr. Reisner has already been on the phone to me,” the sheriff said.
“We’ve reached an agreement,” Manwaring added.
Sheriff Nichols nodded. “The mayor apologizes for acting rashly. But you see, he had friends in Defiance. We all did. Blood ties, too, for that matter. His Honor’s one hope, Miss Garcia, is that you’ll be more careful from now on. You could have gotten yourself killed out there.”
She started to say something, but the sheriff silenced her with a shake of his head. “The fact is,” he said, “if anyone had been left alive in Defiance, they wouldn’t have welcomed you. We’ve had fires before, you know, nothing this bad but bad enough to evacuate people. But not Defiance. They weren’t the kind to quit their land, even in the face of a holocaust.”
He closed one eye and stared into the distance as if drawing a bead on something no one else could see. “I can just imagine old Orson Potter’s reaction if he’d been alive when your chopper landed. He was the elder out there, you understand, and a damn good shot. I ought to know. We hunted together often enough. Jesse Rasmussen was no slouch with a gun either. They’d both have given you a warm welcome, that’s for damn sure.”
“Those are the first names I’ve heard,” she said. “Do you have a list of the dead?”
“We won’t be giving out names until we’re certain exactly who was out there at the time, what with everybody coming and going constantly.”
“What about the children? They didn’t come and go.”
“If the fire had started a few hours later, they would have been in school here in town.”
“So why can’t you give me a list of them?”
Manwaring pushed past the sheriff, raised a hatch in the counter, and stepped through. “Let’s go, Icky. That can wait until tomorrow.”
“I need that list. Reisner’s holding a prime time update for me.”
“I know. The sheriff was kind enough to let me speak to Herb on the phone.”
“The bastard,” she said. “He could have told me he’d already talked to you. I suppose you two have already programmed the update for me?”
Grinning, Manwaring took her arm and said, “You need me, admit it.”
God, how he and Reisner loved playing their games, she thought. Power games, only she was winning this one and they didn’t know it.
“There’s a lot at stake,” she said, doing her best to sound meek.
“Like the co-anchor slot they’re talking about in New York?”
“Have you been discussing my career with Reisner?”
“You know Herb. Nothing is that straightforward.”
Vicki led the way up the basement steps and around the building to the front of city hall, where Frank Wilcox was waiting. The smell of smoke seemed less intense than it had when she arrived; the sky directly overhead was streaked red by the setting sun.
“Tell me again how much you need me,” Manwaring said.
“What about me?” Holland said.
“Us?” Wilcox added.
“Nobody gives a damn about the faces behind the camera,” she said. “Field producers and cameramen are interchangeable parts. One looks just like the other. Those are Reisner’s words.”
Manwaring smiled. “What if I told you I had another exclusive lined up?”
“Bullshit. You’ve been in jail.”
“The sher
iff was kind enough to let me make a few calls. He didn’t even listen in.”
Damn him, she thought. Manwaring had a story, all right. She recognized that smug tone of voice he got when he wanted to impress her. So let him. She’d go along. Let the two of them, Manwaring and Reisner, think they were pulling her strings. Make that four, she thought, since Holland and Wilcox were members of their all-male club.
Standing on tiptoe, she kissed Manwaring on the forehead. When he tried to redirect her lips, she backed off. The disappointed look on his face was gratifying.
“Tell me about the update,” she said.
“I didn’t want to say so in front of the sheriff in case he got protective, but I spoke to the teacher here, a Miss Iverson. She’s agreed to meet us at her schoolhouse.”
“Does Reisner know?”
“He jumped at it when I told him she lost ten of her children.”
Vicki blinked, saw the body bags for an instant, then forced herself to focus on Manwaring. She felt her adrenaline kicking in at the thought of another exclusive. She swallowed carefully, trying to stop her stomach from cramping. “I’d better use the bathroom here in city hall. I may not get the chance to check my makeup later.”
Without waiting for a reply, she went inside.
Behind her Holland said, “God, how she loves making us wait.”
11
ONE WHIFF of Miss Iverson’s schoolroom and Vicki was back in the third grade, standing at the pencil sharpener, cranking slowly, milking the pencil point for all it was worth. Through the window she imagined Dick Spiker two grades ahead of her in the lordly fifth, talking to the hated Sarah Hatch, the sight kindling Vicki’s jealousy even after so many years.
Miss Iverson broke the spell. “Maybe I should speak with the mayor first before talking to the media.”
“We’ve just come from city hall,” Manwaring said, speaking the literal truth but misleading her as to their official status.
Nodding, Alvina Iverson averted her eyes as if studying the print of Gilbert Stuart’s unfinished George Washington that hung on the wall above her desk. She was a thin, gray-haired woman somewhere in her late fifties who wore a high-necked blue dress, a brown cardigan sweater, and the kind of shoes that sensible women prefer. At Manwaring’s direction, she began taping photographs of her Defiance students to the blackboard, while Holland set up his camera.